1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cable fixture used for mounting a cable and the like to a chassis of an electronic apparatus or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a cable fixture for fixing a flat cable to a chassis fabricated from sheet metal, there is known a fixture disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-239325, hereinafter referred as Patent Document 1.
Patent Document 1 describes a fixture which is used for mounting electronic parts, cables and the like to a chassis of an electronic apparatus or the like and which permits a detaching operation to be easily carried out from the face side of the chassis.
The fixture has a holding section for holding a component part onto the chassis, and a fitting section which is provided as one body with the holding section and which is for fixing the holding section to the chassis. The fitting section has a base having a flat bottom surface capable of making contact with the face of the chassis, a clamping piece projected on the bottom surface of the base and fitted from one direction to an inner edge part of a hole provided in the chassis so as to clamp the inner edge part, and a lock body projected on the bottom surface of the base and engaged with an inner edge part of a hole provided in the chassis so as to lock the base from moving in the opposite direction.
This configuration ensures that the operations for mounting and dismounting the fixture onto and from the chassis can be carried out easily.
On the other hand, inside an electronic apparatus, there are cases where a ground line provided in a cable should be grounded or insulated by joining the ground line to a chassis or a shielding sheet metal (hereinafter referred to as “the shield sheet metal”) at an arbitrary position. For example, in order to cope with EMC (Electro-Magnetic Compatibility), a transfer from conductive connection to an insulated condition in a fixed condition may be performed between the shield sheet metal and the cable, or a transfer from the insulated condition to the conductive connection at that location may be performed.
There are cases where a wire harness (hereinafter referred to as “the harness”) obtained by adjusting and combining the length of wires, the number of wires and terminating treatments to complete a single component part which can be easily attached to an apparatus is to be put into conductive connection between locations, between which a current is to be passed, of a sheet metal used for an electronic apparatus casing or the like. In such a case, there has been a need to provide the harness substantially in parallel to the surface of the sheet metal. This arrangement is adopted because, where the harness is substantially parallel to the sheet metal, the desired conduction can be secured by pressing the harness against the sheet metal by use of existing clampers.
On the other hand, where the harness is so disposed that its wiring direction is substantially orthogonal to the surface of the sheet metal, there is a need to partly deform the harness so as to be substantially parallel to the sheet metal, or to deform the sheet metal so as to obtain a parallel relationship.
In the former approach, the harness is deformed, so that a mechanical stress may be generated in the harness itself or in a connector or a device connected with the harness, and it may be necessary to cope with this problem. On the other hand, in the latter approach, no mechanical stress is exerted on the harness, but there is a need to modify the die for forming the sheet metal in coping with the EMC, so that the coping with this problem takes more time and cost.
Here, the EMC includes both the condition where EMC (Electro Magnetic Interference) possibly serving as an interference source of not less than a certain level against external apparatuses is not generated and the condition where such EMS (Electro Magnetic susceptibility) that the operations of the relevant apparatus itself are not hampered by external electromagnetic waves.
There are cases where the harness is disposed so that its wiring direction is substantially orthogonal to the surface of the sheet metal and where there is a need to cope with EMC. For example, there is a case where a flexible cable for connection between a device and a connector is passed through an opening part of the shield sheet metal, there is a need to provide conductive connection between the cable and the shield sheet metal for coping with EMC, and, further, a deformation of the flexible cable to put it into conductive connection to the shield sheet metal would exert a heavy stress on the flexible cable, possibly causing a reduction in device performance. In such a case, the following measure has been adopted.
A configuration has been adopted in which two conductive elastic bodies are disposed, without any gap therebetween, in an opening part of a shield sheet metal through which a flexible cable is passed, the flexible cable is passed between the two conductive elastic bodies, conductive connection between the flexible cable and the conductive elastic bodies is secured by the elasticity of the conductive elastic bodies, and, further, the conductive elastic bodies are fixed to the shield sheet metal by use of a conductive adhesive double coated tape, thereby securing conductive connection between the shield sheet metal and the flexible cable.